"How You Spend Your Money is Your Strategy": Education Spending and the Academic Achievement of Students with and without Disabilities in Virginia, 2018-2025

Virginia experienced a boost in federal and state education funding from 2020-2025 and launched the Virginia Literacy Act in 2023. These policy events prompted our study of the impact of education spending by school divisions on growth in academic pass rates in reading and mathematics for students with and without disabilities in grades three through eight (2018-2025). To do this, we estimated two-level latent growth curve models to examine how reading and mathematics pass rates changed over time, both within and between school divisions. We also examined whether there were school division-level demographic differences in the growth patterns in pass rates and whether K-12 per pupil spending decisions affected those growth patterns. Using publicly available administrative data, we addressed the effects of spending at two time points: 2021-2022 (the first two rounds of federal pandemic relief) and 2023-2024 (the final round of federal pandemic relief plus targeted state funds). We found that pass rates for both reading and math displayed nonlinear growth patterns over time. These growth patterns differed by student characteristics, as students with disabilities and those in school divisions with a higher percentage of minority (non-White) students and families in poverty had significantly lower pass rates. With few exceptions, we also identified negative effects of spending on pass rates in reading and mathematics for students with and without disabilities.